How would you define 'reality'?
I would define it as "That which is right now, irregardless of belief, attitude or consideration."
Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'?
Is it possible to give a rigorous definition of 'reality'?
Comments (125)
This doesn't mean there are two different kinds of deals, truths or news. We are emphasizing something in these cases.
Would you want to exclude fictional entities from reality? Why? Fictional entities play an important role for people all over the world, so they have a kind of reality to them. Also, nature is colourless, odorless and so forth. These aspects are things we add to the stuff of nature. Yet we would not want to say that a flower is a colourless, odorless thing. So, things quickly become insurmountable.
Given these considerations, I don't think you can give a definition of "reality". All you can do is to say which aspects of reality are those which you are interested in clarifying.
Quoting Cidat
"Possible"? Yeah, there isn't a contradiction entailed in doing so, as I think my own (perhaps insufficiently rigorous) attempts show:
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Awesome.
I think reality is circumstance. I think reality is nature. It brings to mind an Emerson quote, emphasis added:
"Here we find sanctity which shames our religions and reality which discredits our heroes. Here we find nature to be circumstance, which dwarfs all other circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her."
I once stood on a chair-shaped rock, high on a peak where a friend died in the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia. I looked out over what he looked out over as he died, and Emerson is all that came to mind.
:fire:
What started out for the search for truth looks more like search for consensus and exclusion.
Ineluctability.
The non/pre-conceptual answer: Being-ness
Idealist answer: Awareness and its ideas.
Materialist answer: That which can be observed and measured with the five senses
Pragmatic answer: Whatever has consequences
You don't try to define reality. You prove or justify it. That's why philosophy is well equipped when it comes to this topic.
ALL terms are context dependent. There is no ‘universal’ meaning that isn’t subject to differing interpretations due to differing subjective and contextual items.
I recommend putting a bit more thought into your OP’s or just reply to other threads instead for the time being.
Ah, but now did you not just do the same? 'There is' harkens to the name of the biblical God of the Old Testament 'I Am', ala absolute facts even if stating that facts themselves are relative ie. subjectivity. You seem to know reality, at least more so than the next guy. How is that?
[quote=Philip K. Dick]Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.[/quote]
In other words, reality just is and no amount of mental manipulation/acrobatics can/will alter/affect it. Reality then is that which you have to accept. You can complain of course, that's what morality boils down to, but don't expect reality to do anything about it.
However, nothing about reality seems logically necessary, that is to say, we maybe able to make some alterations, give it a makeover and that's exactly what humans have been doing ever since we could imagine and thereby conceive of, let's just say, a better deal in life.
Reality is what is the case.
Some may quibble as to the details.
"Some may"? More like "most will"
Yes.
Whatever you wish. Not interested thanks.
Explain...please.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/601278 – chew on that (with further links provided).
I'll work on that. Looks too complicated but I'll give it my best shot. Thanks.
(re: 'ground & horizon' ... encompassed & encompassing, respectively.)
You differentiate between the real, and reality. Does this mean reality is unreal?
No. Only fictions (or mere possibilities) are "unreal". Reality – this or that reality (i.e. configuration of facts) – is contingent: necessarily change-able (or non-necessary, in the sense that it is (always at every moment) possible for 'a reality' to come-to-be or continue-to-be or cease-to-be); and this radical, inherently necessary contingency is (my conception of) the real. (E.g. vide classical atomists (re: void), Spinoza, Jaspers, Rosset, Meillassoux-Brassier.)
Copy that!
Per Wikipedia ""Supreme Brahman" that which is beyond all descriptions and conceptualisations. It is described as the formless (in the sense that it is devoid of Maya) that eternally pervades everything, everywhere in the universe and whatever is beyond."
Quoting 180 Proof
Per Wikipedia: "For the Nondualists, maya is thus that cosmic force that presents the infinite brahman (the supreme being) as the finite phenomenal world. "
Sounds like you are contrasting the Infinite with the Finite?
Is that from one of his essays? Which?
I don't know if I'd call this rigorous, but I find it very satisfying - the ground of being. It's what's all the way at the bottom when you've swept everything else away. It's a term sometimes used to describe the indescribable Tao.
For philosophy, reality is an abstract quality, such as appearance or essence (though not of an object, but the whole world). The criteria for the quality that we impose is its fixed, certain nature. Quoting Tom Storm
The sense is that we can be wrong about the world, but, if we are right, it is because of a relationship with reality (correspondence, reference, etc.). This is the common understanding of a fact that is true (or sometimes knowledge, compared to opinion or "belief").
But the "factness" of a scientific fact (its certainty, its dependability) is based on the method of science, not its correspondence with "reality". Its factness is its repeatability, its constancy, its reliability, its seeming causality. And this desire for a set relationship with something certain, universal, also tempts us to impose the criteria of reality on things other than those subject to the scientific method, instead of seeing what matters to each thing's judgment, identity, correctness, completion, etc.
And this is not to deny the world. In fact, we learn more about the (real) world we live in than a definition of reality by looking (passively receiving, describing) instead of saying so much (actively defining, grasping, imposing, explaining).
If we look at what we imply when we talk about "reality" (or what is real), we say: that we got fooled, as by a fake (not real); that we are deluded, as in creating our own world (own reality); that we should stop day-dreaming, and get back to the business at hand, with tangible (real) results; that hoping will not get us there if we do not deal with the realities (economics, logistics, etc.); that we are only speculating or opining, and not investigating, asking questions (about something other than our own thoughts); that we are in denial of something that happened, or that there is no such possibility. There is also the sense @180 Proof provides: Say, "They can ignore the consequences all they like now, but at some point reality is gonna smack them in the face."
I'm sure there are more, as these are not my definitions (nor definitions at all), and there is more to rigorously dig into, with more specificity, precision, accuracy, distinction, variety, by drawing out examples of when we talk about reality (our history of expressions) to find the implications and criteria (in what contexts) that this data shows about our lives, thus ourselves, than the intellectual gymnastics that philosophy goes through to make our world "reality" before even getting started.
Quoting James Riley
I join in this focus on circumstance (we could say we make "heroes" of scientific certainty, ideals, forms), but I would tweak it that Emerson is not saying "reality is nature" (it is not a statement--he is not solving skepticism); but he is redirecting us to our ordinary circumstances (contexts Wittgenstein and Nietszche will emphasize). Not imposing certainty, but finding the criteria of each thing, in the contexts in which they live (could be extended to), instead of abstracting away from any context in order to apply "reality" to everything.
As you probably know, Paul Tillich, one of the most influential Christian thinkers of the 20th century, used this term 'ground of being' to describe god. God permeates all creation and is the answer to the ontological fear of non-being. Or something like that...
This is an interesting and well-written discussion.
I've come across the phrase in a few different contexts. I probably heard it first from Alan Watts. As I said, I'm not sure it is any better a definition than any of the others, I just find it satisfying. It gets at what I mean when I say "reality."
In my experience, if you come across it on the page, you get the most recent version. If you follow a link to your name, you get the version that was current when it was first saved. If you add a mention to a post later, the person mentioned doesn't get a notice.
Nope. And that's the beauty of philosophy. You're not forced to accept anything. You accept it because it logically follows.
Quoting T Clark
Try being more antagonistic...they'll notice
I emailed support and they said"
I don't think the Share arrow at the bottom of a edited and saved document does us any good, but it sounds like it doesn't send a new notification, which is fine, but if the link to a specific comment shouldn't change after its edited, I'm not sure the link passes through to the edited document. If you can use the notification link to get to this document and see if it has "TEST 1" at the bottom (which I will edit in after I post it, then we know the notification link points to the re-edited document.
TEST 1
It sounds like you're discussing the intersubjective aspects of object permanence -- on-topic -- but in code, or using the forum as a metaphor.
Yes. That's exactly right.
I would just shorten it to "That which is," where being includes not just "right now" but everywhere in a time dimension as well as everywhere outside a time dimension, and everything that is identical to itself. That seems to be the most all-encompassing definition of reality possible. But by "reality" people often mean just a part of reality that they call "concrete reality", which comprises all concrete objects (as opposed to general objects/properties), and more specifically concrete objects in spacetime, and even more specifically concrete objects in our spacetime or our universe. As a side note, concrete objects are collections (combinations) of other objects or empty collections (non-composite concrete objects).
Reality: that which meets the criteria for a posteriori human knowledge, or, which is the same thing, experience.
Hey! Haven't seen you around in a while. Or it could be that I've been away. I have a question for you:
What say you regarding a-priori knowledge and its status in regards to reality?
I mean, we can only have a posteriori knowledge if we have a priori "filters", so the a priori must be part of reality. But perhaps I am thinking wrongly about this.
Hey, I can only point.
In short, a priori knowledge has nothing to do with reality in itself, that being an ontological domain. A priori conceptions, and by continuation, a priori cognitions, are the necessary ground for the possibility of experience of reality, given two conditions: a representational cognitive system, and that system operates under logical predicates, such as (theoretically) found in humans.
I won’t disagree with your “we can only have a posteriori knowledge if we have a priori "filters"”, which is, in effect, what I just said, but I would disagree that these “filters”, or any conceptions a priori, are part of reality.
Reality is best conceived as an empirical domain; real is best conceived as a rational quality. Separate accordingly, I should think.
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I’m always around. I just don’t talk as much as I read.
Interesting. And I can see your motivations from framing it as you do, for it is elegant. But I think things become fuzzy quite quickly in the a-priori vs. empirical domain.
Let me put it quite trivially: if whatever the a priori is that we have (in other words, whatever mechanisms actually come into play when we experience the world) is not a part of reality as such, then we can't speak of reality at all.
In effect, as you would probably agree, we can't experience the world from "a view from nowhere".
Even though we cannot see it (we cant go behind our a-priori mechanisms and see them in action) I can't say they aren't part of reality. Actually I could well be wrong here, no false humility, but I don't see how these can be separated neatly.
In any case, always nice speaking to you.
I believe I'm saying something of the sort when I say that the a-priori is part of reality.
This can be spoken about in the language of computational theories of brain or neuroscientific models or cognitive models.
I don't have an issue with your thinking here, I think @Mww may be trying to make the distinction between empirical and epistemological knowledge such that the world is something we can point to, something which is "publicly available".
He'll correct me.
It shouldn’t be all that fuzzy, if it be accepted that which we sense, the empirical, is very far from that which we merely think, which is always and only ever a priori. Brain mechanics aside, of course. How do we tell a beautiful object, if we don’t already have some notion of beauty?
Quoting Manuel
Ahhhh....but we can. We know it as thinking. And we do separate, by delineating that which is sensed, from that which is thought.
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Quoting Manuel
I think it incorrect to say we cannot speak of it at all, because that which is conceivable, can be spoken of, insofar any conception can be represented by a linguistic symbol, a word. And to speak about it, is merely to assemble words representing conceptions conjoined with it, and to speak about it sensibly is just the assemblage of conjoined representations of conceptions that don’t contradict each other. Still, to speak of a thing is sufficient to prove its possibility, but not sufficient to prove an empirical existence.
If reality in and of itself is not an empirical existence, then it must be that we can talk about only by means of a priori conceptions. We can think reality, but we are never going to have a sensation caused by it, right? Case in point....if reality is conceived as that which contains all real things, reality cannot itself be conceived as a real thing, for then reality must contain itself, an impossibility. If reality is not a thing, but can be represented in thought, hence subsequently talked about, then it is nothing more than a conception, and the conceptions conjoined with it to form propositions about it, must themselves be either hypotheticals or altogether unknowable.
Good speaking with you as well, and don’t sell yourself short. Nothing trivial about this stuff. It is what we do, after all.
I think this is our main point of disagreement. Not at all that I think experience is an illusion, I'm averse to eliminitavism of most stripes. I think experience is the which we are most acquainted with out of everything. But I don't think it's the main a priori facet, that is inscrutable to us. It's part of a process of which we only become aware of a tiny part of. In other words experience only gives us a small part of what is termed "mental".
Quoting Mww
Ah. Well if you include "things in themselves" as part of the conception of reality here, it gets much more complex. However, for the purposes of this thread, I think it suffices to say something like, reality is whatever there is (for us).
Anything beyond that or whatever grounds this reality, is admitted as mostly unknowable.
Quoting Mww
Thanks. Na man, it's that if I don't understand this for myself then it's a problem. I avoid complexity as much as I can. But I agree, it is what we do.
I'm pretty sure when I post, it just flies into the ether (it feels unreal). Again, the abstraction of reality into a quality was caused by the desire to have certainty. We are digging in a 240-year-old hole.
Quoting Manuel
And the fact that our (non-mathematical) world is not certain freaks us out so much we cut ourselves off from the thing-in-itself (from what essentially interests us) so that we can impose certainty onto the (our) world, even though we can't know (for certain) the "real" world. We kill the world before we even get started knowing each thing by their everyday criteria.
Quoting 180 Proof
We would like the functions of the brain (science) to be responsible for our connection to the world, but a priori is a basis for judgment, and our judgments already (prior to experience) have everyday criteria (apart from us) for what makes each thing, necessarily, what it is (categorically); here, what matters to us about (i.e., the criteria for) reality is, in part, that it is in contrast to illusion, delusion, denial, fakery, etc.
Quoting Emerson, Experience
Hmm. I think that in our common sense folk science, we think we are studying "thing in themselves", that doesn't lead to theories. It can lead to very valuable stuff like art and the like.
I think the problem arises when we think that in studying say certain properties of trees or brains or anything else, many often assume we are studying a "tree-in-itself" or "the brain-in-itself". That's a mistake. However, we've gained lots of good information about the world this way.
I don't think "things in themselves" can be studied empirically. I think we can try and say negative things about it: what it's not and what it doesn't have, leaving very little room for positive contributions.
So I agree with the spirit of the argument, but I don't think we can study MUCH of "what interests us", in much depth. From phenomenal properties such as colors and sounds to political organizations. We just can't get much depth empirically about these things.
I guess what I said might be entirely inscrutable in not explicitly explaining that I took you to be saying that "a priori" was a function of the brain automatically interacting with the world. I imagine your use of the term here was to point out that our brain affects our world before we experience it, or that it is our experiencing in general. The reason I then said "We would like the functions of the brain (science) to be responsible for our connection to the world" is because, though science could tell us about how our brain affects our experience, it only makes it philosophically relevant if our brain was more involved in how we are connected (and disconnected) from our world, how to make clear-headed (realistic) judgments in it, see it for the dog-eat-dog power struggle that it really is, don't get caught in flights of fancy, etc. What I took it to come down to--though not necessarily in response to your comment--is only a desire to have the certainty of brain functions be the measure of our situation, carry our responsibility for us.
As a contrast, I was describing a priori's traditional use to distinguish between the types of reasoning used in the act of making judgments, in which a priori rationale come prior to our experience, but this in the sense of prior to me participating in a situation (with its associated entanglements of my feelings and interests). But how we judge, what matters to us, our standards, are in our lives already (prior to) and are categorically necessary (without me) in that if an expression doesn't fit into the criteria of an apology, it just isn't a real apology. A priori rationale would be: you must be sincere, you must understand what you did, you must say I'm sorry, your forgiveness is contingent on its acceptance by the other, etc.).
-""That which..."?
Reality includes many "that which"!
Reality is a label of an abstract concept...not a label of a thing.
Reality as a concept accomodates every entity, process or property that manifest and interact in the realm we experience.
It has nothing to do with concepts like "absolute reality" or "ulitmate reality".
Its practical value is to distinquish things that are real within a known empirical system opposed to proposed imaginary entities.
Not so much wrong, as insufficient. The brain is responsible for everything, but it is not known how the brain does what seems other than strict adherence to natural law. That it does is given; how it does is not.
And from that, I rather think....
Quoting 180 Proof
....that is a mistake, insofar as we do need, or perhaps convince ourselves we need, a theory of human cognition, for the same reason as we need theories for anything we don’t already know, as the means for logical explanation. Even if some cognitive theory is found deficient, we’ve lost nothing, because we don’t have the fullest knowledge the theory represents anyway. And we’ve gained nothing, for to find a theory deficient is to generate another to replace it, and that under exactly the same conditions but merely with alternative major premises. The only way to falsify a metaphysical theory is with empirical proofs, which more than likely we will never have. Even without empirical proofs, we are still entitled to grant to ourselves warrant for non-contradictory logical explanation.
Ask yourself.....if some measurement of the brain can be displayed that shows your deepest darkest secret, would you then feel as if you don’t really have one? It follows that if you don’t feel the display, while certainly existing in reality because it represents as a quantity in space and time, is the definitive interpretation of the secret as it really seems to you, there is a necessary qualifiable distinction between the two.
If A is in B and if B is in C, then A is in C is true, iff all A’s, B’s and C’s are the same kind, or inhere with congruent modality. If reason is in the brain and if the brain is in reality, then reason is in reality.....just doesn’t work, because they aren’t, and they don’t.
Or so it seems......
Yeah, we would disagree a lot on that. The justification for the disagreement in contained in your own proposition, in that your “I think” is antecedent to that which you’re thinking about, which is always the case, without exception. The subjective condition is that which holds the greatest acquaintance, insofar as it is absolutely impossible to escape your own personal state of affairs.
Think of it this way: what you experience is always contingent on circumstance and you have no promise of knowledge given from it, but that the experience belongs to you alone is undeniable, thus impossible not to know with apodeitic certainty. Doesn’t it then seem that the greatest acquaintance would be that which is inescapable?
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Quoting Manuel
Now that I do agree with.
Notice the difference?
Cool thing about a 240 yo hole? Nobody’s successfully filled it in. Scoffed at it, ridiculed it, bastardized it, FUBAR’ed it....but never showed its irrationality.
Yep. The empirical domain we can point to, the rational domain we can point with.
The knowledge of each is as different in kind as the domains themselves, re: public as opposed to private, from which it is quite apparent the method sufficient for acquisition of one must be somewhat distinct from the method of acquisition of the other, partially reflected in your “tiny bit aware”.
If I follow, the "I think" that accompanies experience, would form a part of experience. And thus be a part of reality (for me).
Yes, I'd agree with your last sentence.
I should say that I use the word experience very broadly.
Is it your contention.....your understanding, your belief, your mindset/worldview......that you experience, say, basketballs, as such?
If as such you mean "in itself", no. Of course not.
Basketballs are the results of a complex interplay of the a-priori, which includes some aspects of concept formation, plus the recognition of sensible qualities with whatever is "out there" that results in me calling that thing "a basketball".
Most of the work is done by me, automatically and in large parts unconsciously. If I were to limit myself to what is "out there", minus the a-priori, I wouldn't know if I could even perceive anything at all, much less a basketball.
So reality would be essentially non-existent. As Cudworth put it "the book of nature is legible only to an intellectual eye". Only those things that arouse something "native and domestic" in us, can we call real.
I don't say much more than this.
Well okay, then we're talking past each other since my aside
Quoting 180 Proof
dismisses the "traditional use" of a priority. My conception is that "participating in a situation ... with its associated entanglements" is the a priori (e.g. Merleau-Ponty's flesh, Buber's dialogical encounter, Witty's forms-of-life, Freddy's bodily perspectivism, Hume's empirical customs & habits of mind, Benny Spinoza's bondage ... re: embodied / enactive cognition). Thus, my focus on 'brain organization – experiencing, judging, reasoning are brain-effects (outputs) and not causes (e.g. "categories" that "constitute experience").
Quoting unenlightened
:up:
This is a neuroscientific problem of brain-functioning, and no longer a (premature, underdetermined) "transcendental" question of "categories of reason", which is mostly begged in a schema with platonic fiats (pace Kant et al). It's this pseudo-science of Kantianism that I find "insufficient". I prefer affirming and exploring (epistemic, cognitive) gaps in themselves rather than anachronistically positing (meta-cognitive) "forms" / "categories"-of-the-gaps instead to pacify my (our) not yet knowing.
I'm not suggesting an emperical investigation. Instead of projecting (the "essence") into a thing, subject ahead of time to certainty, we are investigating what is important to a thing being what it is--what is said to be an essential distinction of a color? Unlike objects, if we have the same color on two objects, we say there is one color, not two instances of the same color. This is part of what color is; how a priori we judge the sameness of color, compared to saying there are two colors, meaning different colors, not different instances. These criteria are embedded in our lives and we grow into them. They are the depth to our unexamined connections to the world.
This looks to me as an attempt to (try to) clarify the phenomenal properties we add to the world. Yes, we grow into certain molds - set forth by nature - we don't know exactly how, aside from saying that genetics play a role.
But I think that novels explore these things you are speaking of quite well.
I didn't differentiate, because it doesn't matter. Rational or not, it is ascription of a "quality" to the world that starts the slippery slope. "Rational' easily slides towards predetermined, complete, self-enclosed, and, most importantly, certain. Of course, if you did not mean to say quality, but simply that the world is best conceived as rational, then I misunderstood.
Quoting Mww
Yes, it is understandable. It involves the fear of separation from the world and so the desire to impose a solution to ensure our relation. The fear is very real, and the desire is understandable.
I understand you want to avoid "quasi-platonic 'transcendental deduction' " but that is not to dismiss what "a priori" is, but only what you think are the necessary conclusions based on the implications of the criteria for inclusion in its class of reasoning. I disagree with what I take as your understanding of what the criteria are for being a priori, as well as your assumption the above are the only outcomes.
Quoting 180 Proof
To call judging an effect of the brain is of course true in the sense our brains affect everything we do, but it does not have control over everything. The criteria for judging a good example of a dog breed are set by the American Kennel Club. The criteria for what we say is "reality", I could agree, are embedded in the forms of our lives, with each form (concept, category) having its necessary criteria to be walking, seeing, thinking, compromising, understanding, etc. To reduce these to effects of the brain is to gain knowledge and certainty, but only in overlooking all the depth of the history of life.
The reason to distinguish judgments based on a priori reasoning is that we want to have the necessity of criteria of a category for our judgment: that if I'm going to claim you're not seeing reality, only specific questions are expected to be asked, categories of evidence considered, and only certain answers will be accepted (within the lines of our a piori criteria and their types of justifications). "You need to face reality, they are not coming back." would be followed by "I know they will!" which could lead to "You're dreaming; I'm done." Also, "You're not experiencing the real world." would be met with something like "I'm only going to stay with my parents until fall." Now you can say whatever you like, but "I am!! I'm participating!!" seems to lose the thread on not only how but why we differentiate reality a priori.
Now I am not minimizing the a posteriori as Kant wanted to (out of a desire for certainty). It is critical to put a concept like reality into a context in drawing out the implications, and, when we make judgements, we not only must consider the context (applicable to that concept), but that I am also personally, individually, involved sometimes in how things come off (it's not all about knowledge), though not that my "experience" determines anything (outside of my past participation), nor that the "situation" is our brain/body (other than maybe times when the brain is not functioning normally).
Quoting Manuel
Cool. So, can we say this.....
Quoting Manuel
.....is what your.....
Quoting Manuel
....is meant to indicate?
If such is the case, and it is as well the case that what you experience is not the object itself that is in reality, then how can your experience be part of it?
Do you think perhaps you might be using the word “experience” too broadly?
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Quoting Manuel
If this is true, must’nt the intellectual eye be outside that which it views? If the intellectual eye is a placeholder for “I think”, and if either view the book of nature, re: reality, then both must be other than, or outside, reality.
Yes? No?
Yeah, I do use it very broadly, in part because consciousness is over used these days.
For me, the conscious part of the mental is experiential goings-on, at this moment. What goes through me or in me as I write these letters or think about the words I'm using. Or shut my eyes and listen to the fan, and so on.
Quoting Mww
The way I see it, it's not as if when I look out my window, it's "I" or "me" looking at this window. It's more like making sense of a green pattern and later on a complex process these sensations gets labeled as "a tree". Yes, it's always subjective.
Quoting Mww
I don't think we need to say that we experience "reality-in-itself" in order to say that we experience part of reality. Any experience whatsoever will be conditioned by subjectivity, so the "things in themselves" will remain an issue.
But my representations are part of reality, which are formed by my innate faculties in conjunction with sense data from the world. They may be a step removed from the realizing grounds of whatever appears, but this doesn't make them any less valid as a part of reality. But this is true of any creature and whatever world they experience. Whatever they experience is part of reality for that creature.
If experience is not part of reality as appears to us, I would have no reason to trust my manifest image for anything.
:up:
Ok. Thanks.
Not sure what "this" is (gonna assume everything I said, which seems like an oversimplification may be coming), but no, I am talking about everything. Just not differentiating/separating a "reality" from something we don't quite get at, or only get at rationally, or through "phenomenal properties".
Quoting Manuel
What I am saying is that we do know how to look into ourselves and our world, if only we get past our paralyzing need for certainty (say by falling back to only genetics).
Quoting Manuel
It wouldn't be the first time philosophy was looked down upon as stylistic, but I agree with you, only I take our expressions as more than novel. The implications we find when we say, for example, "You live in your own reality." are more concrete than all the machinations about what "reality" is.
Nope, would never mean to say that, seeing as how being hit by a bus has certain altogether empirical implications on the one hand, but my subjective condition will be affected in an entirely different way in the other. A broken pelvis is hardly anything like self-recrimination for being clumsy.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, absolutely, and why shouldn’t we wish for certainty in some form or another? If we trust the principle of law with respect to empirical science, why not the principle of sufficient reason for pure metaphysics?
"This" meaning your approach, as I understood it. Sure, I mean, if we look at the ocean, the blueness we see and the wetness we feel are surely part of the reality of the ocean (for us). But we can't study the blueness or the wetness. This doesn't mean they aren't important, I'm not saying that. What I am trying to say is that I think it's likely that we cannot study scientifically those aspects of the world which we find most interesting:
Music, colours, politics, most aspect of experience, history and so on.
We have some interesting ideas and categorizations, but not "theoretical depth". But surely these things matter a good deal.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I agree. Certainty is not attainable for creatures like us.
Quoting Antony Nickles
In a sense, yes, because in that phrase, reality is anchored more clearly as belonging to the way a person views and relates to the world. If we speak of "reality" without such specifications, the conversation will be broad as we aren't yet specified by what we agree to take as aspect of reality that are relevant.
Some may include God in reality or be dualists, etc.
Good, because experiencing anything “-in-itself”, is impossible. Again, under the auspices of a representational cognitive system operating with logical predication. Even without the “-in-itself” signifier, given the definition that reality is the totality of all possible experience, and because the accumulation of all experience is impossible, it is clear the experience of reality is a non-starter. So not only do we have no need to speak of it, we actually have no business with it at all, except as an unconditioned, pure a priori conception used to terminate an ontological infinite regress.
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Quoting Manuel
Quoting Manuel
The first makes explicit an object of experience as part of reality, the second suggests experience is the object of reality. Only one of these can be true.
It’s fine, no harm-no foul. We just each have quite diverse conceptions of reality, that’s all.
If you take that definition, then you will end up with your conclusion. I wouldn't put it like that, but I can see the legitimacy of defining it that way.
Quoting Mww
If you want to think in terms of subject and object you can, it is often helpful. We can say that we are simultaneously subject and object. We can speak of events instead.
Call it an subjective affectation, a partial object, the disclosure of being. I think experience is part of reality.
Quoting Mww
And that's why I wanted to talk to you, you force me to try to be clear. I don't aim to convince, only to get a better grasp of what I think is true.
So thanks. I do appreciate it.
We experience things that are not part of reality. They are common enough to have a name - illusions.
The other day I saw my favourite weeding fork in a garden bed a few meters away. I went to get it, but it wasn't there. Backtracking and looking again, what I had experienced as a weeding tool was a leaf bent in such a way as to appear the shape and colour of the handle o the weeder. I was mistaken.
Sometimes folk disagree as to what they are experiencing.
Illusions, mistakes and disagreements are most simply accounted for if what is the case is different to what is thought to be the case.
Reality is not what one experiences. Reality is what is the case.
You can take out "the reality" and, if you take out "surely" (certainly), then you can even take out "(for us)". We may turn out (afterwards) to be mistaken (in a waterpark, say), yet the world does not come crashing down--only our desire to be sure beforehand.
Quoting Manuel
Well the scientific method only works with certain things. But also, particular topics do not respond to a requirement for certainty. We may not be ensured of a result in a moral conversation, but it does not make it irrational.
Quoting Manuel
As I said, our ordinary criteria allow us to rigorously dig into these topics with specificity, precision, accuracy, distinction, clarity, etc. So there may be something else causing you to overlook philosophy's insights into color (which I mention above), and its ability to add to the discussion of justice.
Quoting Manuel
This is how philosophy removes the context of a concept in order to slip in the criteria that something be certain. The thing is that we don’t speak of anything without the specifications and implications of it in our lives, so if we don’t remove them but focus on them, they are what we intellectually can grab onto about something.
I can take away "the reality" only in the sense that reality can be honorific, as I've said elsewhere. If someone says "this is a real waterpark", they aren't implying that there are two waterparks: waterparks and real waterparks, it's a matter of emphasis.
I use "surely" as a word implying confidence, not certainty, we could remove it if you prefer. I don't have such high aims. Water looks transparent in small amounts and at night, it's practically black, not blue.
I can't remove "for us" in any meaningful sense. I don't think birds or panthers think about, cognize or speculate about waterparks or anything else. They may even be in one (what we call a "waterpark") and be oblivious to it, outside of finding plenty of chemically treated water, it's not an issue.
Quoting Antony Nickles
That's fine. I don't have a problem with that. Only that in being philosophy, agreement is not as common as it is in other areas. Which is not bad, just the way philosophy is.
Quoting Antony Nickles
We could. But at this level of abstraction ("what is reality") as opposed to "what should be counted as real", the vagueness of the issue at hand can cause people to pursue different paths, with little by way of common criteria which could help establish agreement.
But not certainty. I think it's futile to chase this idea much.
Wittgenstein will say we are compelled (to strip our world of any measure and replace it with a requirement for certainty). We may hope that a moral discussion will end in agreement, but the temptation is to define our morals beforehand so we are ensured of what is right. We may see the world as intelligible, capable of telling us its secrets, but not if we require that it be certain knowledge or necessarily stem from a cause.
As overblown as W makes that sound, it is actually what the human system attempts to do, if not attain to certainty, at least have some certainty by which to judge our comprehensions a priori. Hence, the three Aristotelian laws of logical thought, from which all proper deductive inference follows. Schopenhauer is credited for establishing the principle of sufficient reason to the three from the Ancients, but it is merely supplemental to the irreducible axiomatics.
Still, to be compelled implies the limitless, insofar as it demands an end even if it be contradictory or absurd, the very epitome of irrationality, but to merely wish implies its own limit, and it is always better to be unsatisfied that irrational.
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I understand what you mean with....
Quoting Antony Nickles
....but I like this as much more fluent.....
“.....(We) must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose....”
....found close to the bottom of the pile excavated from that 240yo hole.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Wait. Wha??? W says we’re compelled to certainty, but we should at the same time disregard the first principle of certainty, re: cause and effect?
You’re one of those few hereabouts not liable to self-contradiction, so.......what did I mistake?
Quoting Antony Nickles
In so saying, Wittgenstein draws the distinction between subjective, which is inherently uncertain, and objective, about which one may achieve certainty since it is composed of fact, realities
Another question is whether an object belongs to the outside world and why it is so difficult to draw a line between mental objects and "objects in reality".
A purely speculative thought: As the nervous system arose from simple sensory cells that responded directly to specific stimuli from theire enviroment, perhaps that is why consciousness attributes everything that is supposed to trigger a reaction to something different than itself. Our brains may be a million times more sophisticated than those first sensory cells, but on cell level the old electrochemical switches still work.
(BTW, You might want to correct "irregardless" to "regardless".)
First of all, I will define "reality" as it is commonly used, so that I can comment on your description: "The state of things as they actually exist". I will only have to add "for us", i.e. we must refer to our own reality of the world and not to some absolute, objective reality, which cannot be known, or to the physical universe, something which a lot of people confuse or even identify it with.
This will do for now and for what I have to describe here as my response to the description of the topic.
1) Re "That which is right now": This is normally called the present. I don't know how you identify it with "reality". We can say only that it belongs to reality.
2) Re "regardless of belief": Beliefs are part of one's reality, so they cannot be removed from the "equation". (Note: Beliefs must be differentiated from "imagined or imaginary things".)
3) Re "regardless of attitude": Attitude has to do with a way of feeling or thinking and the behavior resulted by it. So it doesn't have to do with reality.
4) Re "regardless of consideration": Like beliefs, considerations are part of one's reality, so they cannot be removed from the "equation" either.
Quoting Cidat
The term "reality" is one of the hottest and most misunderstood ones in philosophy (and of course in the entire human race!). Each dictionary has its own definition, but this can be settled. The real problem is that reality is usually confused with the "physical universe", the "world", as we commonly say. So people talk about "absolute" and "objective" reality; a reality that is "outside us". And what is strange is that they can't go a step forward and ask themselves "If there were absolute, objective reality, who will be there to tell?" Isn't that very interesting? Because at least someone should be able to perceive and describe such a reality. But the "physical universe" is outside us. We exist or not, the physical universe is always there. If no human being were alive, what would be the meaning of a reality? So, reality can only be subjective. It is created and sustained in our minds as we perceive what is outside us (physical universe) and inside us (thoughts, beliefs, ideas, imagined things, memories, etc.)
Now, reality can be shared, i.e., two or more people can have the same or a similar reality about a subject. This is an agreement of views and the result is what we call "common reality". That is as far as an "objective" reality can be.
So, I can define "reality" in simple terms as "The total of things that exist for us and which we accept as facts". It is how we perceive the world. And it is how we think about the world and how we understand the world. And it is what we believe about everything. We may believe in God (or a "god"), we may believe that God doesn't exist or we may believe that there is a possibility that God exists. All that belong to our reality.
In short, reality has a meaning only for the individual. The only reality outside that is another individual's reality!
That my experience (what I saw, touched, tasted) can be an illusion, that I can be mistaken in my memory, my assumptions, makes it seem as if even the closest things to me cannot be trusted. We take the failure of our best case scenario as a sign there must be a different version which is not subject to the limitations of our ordinary means of judgment, instead of looking at it that our failure and limitation happens in normal rational ways. We are apart from each other and still learning and obscure to ourselves and subject to deception or lack of control. However, if we only ascribe certainty and solidity to the world, we strip away the ordinary fallible, different means of judging every separate type of thing.
As @Manuel has said, "reality" is a title with few duties except with respect to something else. And so as @Banno has said, we are mistaken, fall prey to illusions, etc. And as I have pointed out, we become deluded, fooled, dream, hope, etc., but "Reality" is not a thing or quality itself, but only a relation to a state of confusion. We find ourselves lost to our inquiry, away in our own thoughts, even in a picture created by our desire to simplify, and we need to be brought back to the case at hand. But this is not one thing, found in one way, judged by one standard.
Our compulsion for certainty is from our fear of the failure of our ordinary means of judgment, and so we strip away any context, abstracting to "reality" as a generalization to which we can attribute a certain ground, a consistent cause that will ensure certainty. As you quote:
Wittgenstein attributes Kant's imposition of the terms of judgment as what blinds us to the vast variety of criteria of every different thing, as he himself was guilty of in the Tractatus, which led to his inability to speak on so much of our lives. The desire for certainty and resolution precludes the rational means we have of investigating and discussing everything else, though it may not lead to agreement or avoid our failings.
Quoting Mww
Our fear of our groundlessness creates a desire for necessity worked out beforehand, thus the popularity of Aristotle's observations. If we can just find premises which ensure conclusions, then we can skip the messy work of sorting out an instant case based on what prior criteria our lives have for each thing. We forget that formal logic's stringent criteria limits its applicability only to certain topics (wanting instead to apply it everywhere). So we create "reality" to apply our own criteria universally and then we internalize uncertainty within ourselves in order to have control over it. Thus we "judge our comprehensions" before they have a chance for the regular failures the world has and we in it.
Quoting Mww
But to be unsatisfied in our wish for certainty makes us dismiss anything not able to meet that standard as "absurd" or "irrational". So we are the ones which create a "limit" for what rationality is: certainty, completeness, necessity, and the abstract removal of context and ourselves. And our limit (Kant's line) creates the picture of a "reality" which we can then judge everything else against in which we cannot be sure of beforehand (in ourselves, "a priori").
But the ordinary criteria in our lives do have prior standards of identity, judgment, completion, and other implications, though they do not ensure our actions or expressions, and are subject to the context and require our subsequent and continuing involvement (in contrast to our wish to structure rationality or ourselves to avoid, beforehand, this responsibility).
Only the common, or the uninformed, succumb to such disaster. Everyone makes mistakes; no need to fear anything. The human compulsion for certainty is merely a reflection of our nature as rational agents to seek truth, and we seek truth because anything else is reducible to it. Simple as that.
Quoting Antony Nickles
We’re only blinded....so to speak....to the remaining vast variety of criteria, after having determined the ones that fit. Every different thing already implies a vast array of criteria, but each thing has its own. Of course I’m blind to any variety of criteria that doesn’t fit my cognition of “water buffalo”, if that is what under judgement.
All this just seems like a solution in need of a problem.
Tell that to Descartes. We imagine disaster though we have ordinary ways to mitigate it: excuses, apologies, etc. And we do not succumb, we react, creating the standard of reality and making the inherent potential for failure and uncertainty seem like only our (my) state rather than of everything.
Quoting Mww
Yet if we reduce the world to true or false, we make it impossible to see the variety and complexity of knowledge and wisdom that we seek.
Quoting Mww
The problem is the projection of reality as a solution for our inability to manage with the imperfect criteria of our lives, our responsibility for them, and the otherwise groundlessness of our world.
Are you suggesting fear is synonymous, or compatible, with doubt? Either or, Rene was explicit in his doubt, but it can’t be said with sufficient justice, that he was afraid of it. In fact, it might be said he used it as a weapon. And if not a weapon, then certainly a most unconditioned judgement.
Even that rascally demon, which is nothing but a means for fear-mongering, with respect to Descartes’ metaphysics at least, was merely the other of a pair of extremes, in accordance with the human system of rational complementary. As such, he didn’t fear it, or its potential, but rather accepted its formal necessity, for without it, his idea of god would be meaningless.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Antony Nickles
.....IS to succumb. It just makes no sense to me, to argue the validity in fearing a mere potential, or in doubting the possibility of avoiding it. Why would anybody even get out of bed in the morning, if he was constantly wracked with fear for making potential failure the rule of the day?
Nahhhhh.....no profit whatsoever in allowing the exception to the rule to become the expectation.
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If, as you say....
Quoting Antony Nickles
...and if, as The Esteemed Professor says....
“...approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it...”
.....then how exactly does this relate?
Quoting Antony Nickles
As regards reality, if we always receive, who or what is projecting? I submit or your consideration, we don’t project anything upon, nor do we tell reality or Nature in general, anything at all, but always and only tell ourselves how reality appears to be. As soon as this is understood as the fundamental condition of the human state of affairs, there is no legitimate reason to fear, or doubt, the inherent potential for failure and uncertainty in the “ inability to manage with the imperfect criteria of our lives”. As a matter of due course, it is to be given, for without mistakes resulting from failures, learning is impossible, other than by sheer accident, the occurrence of which can never be itself a fear nor a failure.
On the other hand, you might be indicating by “projection of reality”, a relative behaviorism, in that once reality is understood in a certain way, it is then the ground for the treatment of its other inhabitants, supporting your “otherwise groundlessness”. In which case, I understand “projection of reality” as a euphemism for projecting oneself as a reflection of a particular reality, which is common practice, yes. Then, perhaps the fear of failure and uncertainty is with respect to how one will be received by his projection, which, rather than a fear of one’s own understanding, is a fear of being misunderstood.
Perhaps we’re closer to each other’s theories than first appears. I make the case for wishing to be understood BUT NOT holding with any fear of failing in my own understanding, you make the case for the fear of not being understood BECAUSE of the potential for failure in one’s own understanding.
Or not.....
A. What is reality?[/quote]
A. What are "percepts"?
— George Berkeley plays Jeopardy
Yes, I am saying the fear of the conclusions of the radical skeptic creates the need to answer him with a particular kind of solution, ignoring the ordinary means of judgment we already live within, because they are not a solution.
Quoting Mww
I'm not claiming this reality that we postulate is in response to a "mere" potential or that in abandoning its picture we are giving up. The ultimate groundlessness of knowledge is not an exception but our human condition, without an intellectual solution. Nevertheless we function, and fail; sometimes it does not work out; and we bear that ongoing burden.
Quoting Mww
This is not to deny the world, just its separation into appearance and reality; which is the differentiation we use to salvage reality as a generalized certainty, making our experience or perception what is limited, tainted, or only individual. The history of our lives, culture, and expressions are the fabric of our criteria for each thing, which responds to our inquiries, provided we are not demanding the answers provide generalizable certainty, as we equate with "reality".
Quoting Mww
As I mentioned previously, the confidence with which Emerson implores us to act is to rely upon our everyday criteria, which is not the same as an arrogance that we are not afraid of failing because we act on a certainty based on reality (not that that is your position). I am not making the case that we should be afraid, but that our creation of this picture of reality is the result and evidence of the fact that we are afraid (like an overcompensation to an insecurity); that we want to ensure our being understood, that we want our knowledge to guaranty our acts beforehand, relinquish us from responsibility for failure. This is not fear of failure of "one's own understanding", but the scisim of us from the world, and so we save the world and internalize the failure as our own; we take responsibility to avoid being responsible.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Hmmmm. I grant the need to answer the radical skeptic with a solution (rebuttal? refutation?) of a particular kind. But first, what does it mean to “fear” the conclusions of a radical skeptic? How would that conclusion manifest? Without understanding these, what kind of answer would I be able to formulate? If ordinary means of judgement result in truth, why wouldn’t that answer the radical skeptic, as a legitimate solution?
I was going to ask before, but didn’t, so I’ll ask now: what is an ordinary means of judgement? Are there extraordinary means? I’m guessing you have an explanation for what judgement is, in order to distinguish the ordinariness of it we already live within, from something other than that.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
I grant the contingency of empirical knowledge is a human condition, but reject the groundlessness of it. Knowledge is an intellectual process giving a solution in itself, which suffices as necessary ground. There is irreducible certainty in human rationality, therefore knowledge is possible. That which is possible must have a ground.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Perhaps, insofar far as the failure is not mine, but the other’s. I try my best to be understood, and that I have tried relinquishes me from responsibility for you not understanding me. Nevertheless, I hold with no “overcompensation to an insecurity”. If I am not responsible, for having tried, there’s no insecurity for which overcompensation is a remedy.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, in the case where it is not a human-to human relation, but human-to-world relation, where one mis-judges something about the world.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I can see taking responsibility FOR avoiding being responsible, but if I do take responsibility, something I’m responsible for is presupposed. It would seem I cannot, then, take responsibility TO avoid being responsible. If I take responsibility I AM responsible for taking it, hence haven’t avoided being responsible at all.
I appreciate your asking questions; skepticism is of course a long story (and I won't tell it right), but with Plato and Descartes, etc. radical skepticism differs from regular doubt in that it is not just: how to identify a goldfinch from a robin, but: how do we know that is (an instance of) a table, or a piece of wax? Once we get to that question the fear is that there needs to be an answer or we end up in a place where we are asking how do we know what is real at all. To add fuel to the fire, we want to know what is the right thing to do and know about other people (their minds), and then the wheels come off the bus because we can't find any solution that has any weight in those instances.
Quoting Mww
And this is the bottle we get trapped into, picturing the issue as a problem that must be solved. What Wittgenstein and others found is that the skeptic's abstraction from tables and goldfinchs to generalized terms like appearance and particular and meaning and true, stripped away our criteria for each thing and a context in which to apply them. Without those, our answer to the skeptic's picture of our groundlessness is to re-impose criteria which solve for that conclusion outside any context.
Quoting Mww
Even if we put the skeptic's claims within an understandably context, the skeptic is correct about our ultimate groundlessness, our separation from each other, the possibility we may not bridge that gap, and that we can not do it with knowledge alone (beforehand, as it were: sidestepping our responsibility). And the fact our ordinary means of judgement are specific for each thing means that truth (true/false) is not the only measure of importance (or truth-value), nor are we setting (imposing) the bar equally across the board with certainty, a certain logic or rationality, etc.
Quoting Mww
The criteria we would ordinarily use would be the measure of, or what counts in deciding, say, the difference between an accident and a mistake. They are the yardstick by which we judge whether the expression of an excuse absolves me of the consequences of an action; whether my expression meets the categorical requirements to call it an excuse, one successfully pulled off. Now if we are worried about leaving our actions in the hands of classification and judgment after the fact, we could remove the context of before and after, and the surrounding circumstances, and simply abstract a generalized theory of action or speech which would remove our part in it.
Quoting Mww
Math and formal logic and science are grounded within themselves. For the rest, we "give a solution" to ourselves" which is modeled on those and only recognizes "irreducible certainty" suppressing our ordinary, fallible rationale and the regular logic of our lives. There is no assurance of us being understood, no guaranty for our acts, no knowledge to secure our relationship to another.
Quoting Mww
The generalized ideas of intention and meaning are abstractly related to our expressions as reality is to our world. That "I try my best to be understood", to mean something specific, is the desire to have what we say have a meaning that is certain, complete, contained. That I simply control what I say, rather than be answerable for what I have said, as the judgment of what matters in our expressions is after my saying it, to you, here, now.
Quoting Mww
What I said was maybe a bit too poetic to be useful. What I was tracking was that if we want to ensure that the world is "real" (certain), then the fallible part must be me, my perspective, my individuality, my irrationality; if we want our expressions to have a "meaning" (fixed), then the problem must be "you not understanding me". We (humans) take the blame so that the world and our language have the sheen of certainty, because we do not want the burden, the exposure, the instability, of carrying the world and our communications forward ourselves (continually responsible for our lives, our expressions), rather than hiding behind right, rules, rationality, and fact.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/602937
Yep
Quoting Antony Nickles
....answers my question unmistakably. And it follows, that if no further query is necessary for some sufficient understanding of an original, the way is left open for a counterpoint consistent with the answer to it. So saying, initially at least, the distinction between radical skepticism and mere doubt may be characterized as a matter of degree. The degree is, of course, knowledge, insofar as there would be little additional knowledge needed to differentiate between like kinds, re: finch/robin, but much more to differentiate between kinds, re: table/wax.
Skepticism is, at bottom, the consciousness of ignorance, and ought, instead of forming the conclusion of my inquiries, to be the strongest motive to the pursuit of them. All ignorance is either ignorance of things or of the limits of knowledge. If my ignorance is accidental, in which case I may not know a thing, or if my ignorance is necessary, in which case I have not the capacity to know a thing, it must incite me, in the first case, to a dogmatical inquiry regarding the objects of which I am ignorant; in the second, to a critical investigation into the limits of knowledge itself.
But I understand that’s not what you intend for me to derive from your answer. Just my preliminary counterpoint. The main point is here.....
Quoting Antony Nickles
....to which I would counter with, superficially, it’s easy: in the first place, we know an instance of a thing from experience, and in the second, we know a real thing from the affect it has on us. Care must be given to temporal separations here, nonetheless, in that if an object has a word representing it, like table, the experience of it is not necessarily mine, but is necessarily the experience of the subject that assigned that representation objectively to it. It follows that I know an instance of a table because I already know what a table is, because somebody else gave it that name and I merely carried on with it. On the other hand, if it was possible I never had any experience whatsoever, in any way, shape or form, of this object otherwise represented as a table, it would be my first instance of it, its first affect on me, and as such, wouldn’t even be a table, to me. It would be nothing more than an “undetermined object of perception”. The implication of my radical skepticism regarding the “table” is invalid, insofar as I don’t even know it as anything.
Now it is the question becomes, to whom does the fear intrinsic to radical skepticism belong? It cannot be the subject that represented the object as “table”, because he said it was that, and it makes no sense for him to be skeptical of that which he himself declares to be the case. It cannot be he who is subsequently affected by the same object, because it has already been established that that thing is a table, which will serve as the consistent representation in all its instances, and it makes no sense for that subsequent perceiver to represent it as anything else, for if he does, he is more irrational than radically skeptical.
That which makes radical skepticism a valid conception, is epistemic certainty combined with the logic of the human cognitive system. We can think radical skepticism without contradiction, but it does nothing for us except stretch reason beyond its proper limits.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
All the more substance for demurring from skepticism in general, and radical skepticism certainly, for they got the proverbial horse on the wrong end of the cart. We don’t abstract from, we assign to. Finches don’t inform us as to what they are, but only provide the data from which we tell them how they are to be known. That feat is accomplished with such speculative metaphysical predicates as appearances, particulars, meanings and truths, along with that which unites them all under a logical system, which doesn’t strip away, but PROVIDES our criteria for each thing and the context under which they are applied. All found out long before W and the others, and stemmed from Hobbes and Hume, moreso than others.
All we should ever be radically skeptical of, is the incantation of absolutes, which no proper rational agency does anyway.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
That is.....er......absolutely.....most agreeable. Although, on another note, I must say your “real” is not my “certain”. My certain is true, from which arises the possibility that the world can be very real without me being knowledgeable about the certainty of it.
Quoting Antony Nickles
That seems to be the current paradigm, but it overlooks the intrinsic necessity for human reason. What if the human cognitive system is itself a logical system? If that is the case, how could the certainty of math and logic occur, if not by that which is of its own kind? Maybe math and logic broke no falsity because they arise from a system that cannot permit it. Maybe we use math and logic as a standard for any truth because our system is mathematically logical. Maybe there’s only mathematical objects in Nature because we put them there. And so on......
There’s your groundlessness and radical skepticism writ large. What ground do we have to prove certainty, when what we use to prove it, isn’t certain.
Toljaso.....we’re not so far apart.
Reality is what puts limits upon the possible imageinations of the world. If a rational being cannot make itself believe that "x is true", "x is not true" is reality.
I probably can’t paint a picture with enough depth to instill the grip of skeptical doubt, but I do claim that it is not senseless nor should it be dismissed nor solved. We are not dealing with a simple case of attaching a word to an object; let's try: when two people disagree about not only what is important (what the essential criteria are) about an object, but, say, something like justice, e.g., is it restitution of prior wrongs? or just retribution for prior harms? If I say a table is flat with four legs and you say it’s something we study or eat on, we may struggle to see your world as the same as mine, and maybe then the question we imagine of what is real begins to worry us.
Quoting Mww
This seems to say that the take-away of the skeptic’s claim is that we realize we don't have enough (or the right kind of) knowledge, that our problem is an intellectual lack. You characterize this as a limit or that we do not have the capacity. My point is that this limitation is, in a sense, self-inflicted. I'm not saying that we could find the capacity or think our way around a limit, but that knowledge is limited (it's not our fault), which is where our responsibility begins (or we avoid it with the mirage of a perfectly-knowable reality). The truth of skepticism is that we are separate from each other so we can not know the other (their minds), we must respond to them, accept them (or reject them); that it is up to us to project an expression into a new context and then be answerable for the fallout (not that the meaning is in the saying); that we must act and be read by it without complete knowledge of the outcome. Cavell puts it that knowledge is not our only relation to the world. But instead of accepting the structure of the human condition we manufacture this picture of reality and blame ourselves for not knowing it, or it for being unknowable, rather than take on the burden that is the world and what we would be in it (or defined by it, as @180 Proof says). This does not quell our pursuit to learn about the world, only that we understand something in making explicit the various ways we measure each different thing (thus ourselves) rather than forcing one standard of judgment.
Quoting Mww
I could not have put the train of thought any better myself that leads to us creating the world for ourselves. If we can agree that each thing has its own criteria in various contexts, the "logical system" (for each differently) is provided to us, not imposed by us as abstraction into generalized terms. The “data” of a thing are the preexisting criteria that are only "assigned" as they have developed as part of the history of all our lives (forever) with things and others. Rather than tell the world how it is to be known, we must listen for what rationale a thing has for itself, wait for what matters to us about a thing (hidden in the criteria to gauge it, see it done, etc.).
Quoting Mww
This was not meant as a statement or claim. I was telling the story we create about ourselves for the world to maintain a sense of stability. And we might not know the world with certainty, but instead of settling for the ordinary fallible limited understanding we can have, complete certainty remains the gold standard for what "knowledge" is (for reality), so then we assume the fallible part is us, that we only see appearances, etc.
Quoting Mww
Or this is the other fantasy we tell ourselves: that we operate a certain way, say, that we have a systematic perception (once it was a moral faculty), and if we (neuroscience!!) could figure us out, or how we can't see the real world, then we will understand how we are certain, or could compensate for our imperfection, or, as you say:
Quoting Mww
The root of the whole problem, isn’t it. Neuroscience wants to be able to figure us out, insofar as we are composed of that which adheres to natural law, but if and when it does figure us out with the certainty of natural law.....will “I” disappear? Even if proved illusory, not needed in conformity to law, superfluous with respect to determinism writ large.....do we then relinquish relative truths?
Beat the clock: shitcan “humanity” by proving roboticism? Yeahhhh-no, that’s just never going to work.
You described the problem of objectivity well.
Still, in everyday use, we talk about real vs unreal. Eg. a real woman vs a cross dresser (sorry LBGQ etc). So what is 'real' then here, without reference to objectivity? Can 'real vs unreal' make sense without objectivity?
Thanks. It's good to have an audience. Even of a single person!
But ... what about subjectively? It wasn't as good? :smile:
Quoting Yohan
Certainly. The word "real" has a lot of meanings and it can be used in a lot of different contexts. But here, I believe the word "reality" has to be taken in a philosophical context, i.e., as a philosophical term, even if there are almost as many definitions of it as there are people who try to define it!
Yet, what one must first do in examining all these different definitions and views about reality is to divide them into two main categories: those in which it is considered as something absolute and/or objective and those in which it is considered as something subjective. This is very important since we are talking about two very different "worlds". The difference is so huge and the views diverge so much in each case, that any comparison and discussion between them is impossible. I tell this based on my own experience from a lot of discussions on the subject.
Quoting Yohan
Actually, I believe that it can't make sense without subjectivity! :smile:
I reduced the quote to memory many decades ago. Turns out I was close, but not exact: https://www.bartleby.com/90/0306.html
Thanks.
And my point is that science, as with the projection of reality, wants knowledge, but only "insofar as we are composed of that which adheres to natural law", and, taken in that sense, is only that which meets the standard of being certain, which simple just rules out most of who we are; our lives, our criteria for judgment, for action, for saying something; our possibilities, our freedom, etc.
Quoting Mww
No, to recognize the desire for a reality or science to ground our world with certainty, is not to condemn us to relativity. We have different specific precise criteria for each thing but not the predetermined irrefutable answer. We have to acknowledge our responsibility, which is not the same as reducing our whole society to my opinion, feelings, or thoughts.
Reality is biological extension, in the sense that apparent reality is a biological readout, it is how ultimate reality affects ones biology. So to are the creations of biology whether a bird's nest or culture it is all biological extension.